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When Listing Extracurricular Activities, No Need to Fill All Blanks

As some high school seniors have already discovered, this year’s Common Application has up to a dozen spaces available for applicants to list their activities outside the classroom, including time spent working. For some go-getters, that’s probably not enough space — but for many others, it may be too much.

Which raises an obvious question: should an applicant stretch to fill those 12 lines?

The answer, say deans of admissions and the creators of the application itself, is a resounding “No.”

In my regular column for The Times’s Education Life supplement, which will be published this weekend, I have attempted to disentangle the section of the Common Application devoted to extracurricular activities. It includes a request to applicants that they “briefly elaborate on one” activity or work experience in four lines or less — a question that can be as important, if not more so, than the list itself.

Here’s how Monica C. Inzer, the dean of admissions at Hamilton College in New York and a member of the Common Application board, put it:

We’d rather see depth than a longer list. I think students think we want well-rounded kids. We do. But we really want a well-rounded class. That could be lots of people who have individual strengths. Distinction in one area is good, and better than doing a lot of little things.

You can read a preview of the full article here. Meanwhile, this is probably as good an occasion as any to start a comment thread on the subject of extracurricular activities. Please use the box below to let us know your thoughts.

What if a student is truly engaged in depth in a variety of extracurricular activities that fill your 12 slots? We have heard conflicting advice about submitting too long a resume yet the constraints in the common application do not fit my child’s range of activities. Is it then advisable to paste in the full resume in the “additional information” section? We find the Common App very unwieldy in comparison to the days when you could print and send it via snail mail. There is room for improvement.

No one ever seems to discuss how “extracurriculars” tend to invidiously filter out poorer students; a high school student supporting his or her family simply doesn’t have the time to captain the soccer team, start a chess club, or volunteer at a soup kitchen.

Blogger’s Note: Fair point — in fact, it’s one that I do discuss in the full article from which my blog post was drawn. Specifically, I quote Rob Killion of the Common Application and Jennifer Delahunty, the dean of admission at Kenyon College, explaining why activities and work experience have been combined on this year’s form. I wrote:

One reason for the revision: “So there would be no implied hierarchy of importance between extracurriculars (formerly listed first) and work experience,” [Mr.] Killion, executive director of the Common Application, wrote in an e-mail.

The change is intended to benefit applicants like the one to Kenyon a few years ago “who had no activities, save 25 hours working at the family gas station each week,” Ms. Delahunty said. “We know that’s all that the student could do.” He was admitted.

Students should use the application to best represent themselves. If their current activities take up all 12 slots, then use up the 12 slots. The article is aimed at the typical student who *doesn’t* have 12 activities to fill the lines.

But, if you do have a lot of activities, try to lump together some under under broader headers (eg – “community service” or “music groups”), and use the accompanying line to list specific activities or roles (eg – “weekly math tutor, canned food drive organizer” or “1st chair flute in school band, All-County Orchestra”)… then write a clever essay about your extraordinary time management skills.

# 1 – As a college admissions advisor, I would advise submitting a resume since you find ‘the constraints in the common application do not fit my child’s range of activities”. A resume should be no longer than 2 pages. Be respectful of the limitations of the college admissions officer’s time. Focus on the student’s passions and accomplishments and what makes him/her distinctive. Summarize well. Make sure the format is clear and concise.

Remember that different kinds of schools (public, private, large, small, regional, national, etc.) have different processes of review and different criteria and considerations. One size does not fit all applicants or all institutions! Good luck!!

I completely agree with the author – don’t feel obligated to fill in all 12 blanks, but do use the space to avoid sending a resume if possible.

The Common Application online allows students to submit one optional document. Most submit a resume. If a student can convey all of their activities in the 2 blanks and the short answer, then they could send a much more interesting supplemental document. We recommend students submit something unique, such as a business license, newspaper article, a copy of an award – anything that makes the student stand out.

Admissions committees value demonstrated commitment to activities that a student is passionate about.

My son had a similar situation as #1. Lots of activities he was quite involved in, some of which, by their nature didn’t fit smoothly in the activities boxes. He ended up filling the boxes as best he could and then adding additional activities into the “optional” section with a brief description. The result is that the “priority” activities he put into the boxes actually got less documentation than the ones he added into the optional section. It seems like the activity section could be improved by allowing a little more space and slightly different headings to allow for activities that don’t neatly fall into the prescribed choices.

Too many high schools across this country are teaching our children to exaggerate, embellish, and outright lie about their extracurricular activities in order to gain a perceived advantage over other students competing for a limited number of spots at our nation’s selective colleges. The truth however, is that colleges have repeatedly stated a preference for depth over breadth. They prefer applicants who have dedicated themselves to an activity or cause over students who join numerous clubs and dedicate themselves to nothing. The irony is that high schools continue to allow, in some cases even encourage, students to join numerous clubs and activities in order to pad their applications. Students often sign up for a club for the sole purpose of making their college applications “look good”. The crime here is that we tacitly teach our children that this is the way the world works. We should not be surprised that our country’s moral fiber is so thin as to be translucent. It’s time for colleges and high schools to hold applicants and the high schools they are graduating from accountable for misrepresentation and hyperbole. By allowing this practice to continue, we are contributing to the creation of a nation of young workers who feel that unsubstantiated self promotion, superficial committment, and cutting corners are the way to get ahead in the “real world”.

What I learned from this article is that admissions offices are filtering out the rare talented generalists who are good at multiple things and who can cross boundaries in the over-specialized academic world. Too bad.

It’s not just the talented generalists who are filtered in the Common App. *Any* unusual background, like skipping high school for college, or doing deep research or art, is also given short shrift.

The Common App is designed for the common student. In fact, it is mediocre in trying to meet all comers. It is reductionist in form and lacking in substance.

The supplemental essays are often tedious and mundane (I found Stanford to be particularly silly).

If you have an unconventional student, consider schools like Georgetown which do interviews or the research heavy-weights like the University of California (where many of the Ivy’s get their graduate students and professors).

If you’re a Meg Whitman with a billion dollars, you don’t even have to bother. In the additional section just submit your 1040 and a note that you’d love to give $30M to build a dorm for your kiddie.

I’m sure in this case it doesn’t matter if you send them a dog in a raccoon coat with a Ivy flag in its mouth.

Comment (2) reminded me of Karabel’s book “The Chosen,” published in 2005, that documents the history of the top ivy schools as they sought to limit the number of Jews (who qualified academically and could afford to attend) and keep up the number of WASPs.

The beauty of these admission forms with non-quantifiable sections, like extra-curricular activities, is that they allow great latitude in excluding poor people, ethnic groups, or anyone else they don’t want.

Dee — those skills are typically learned in college and grad school. The super-specialists in quantum physics still know a little biochemistry — what they learned in AP Bio. But it’s not to the level where they’d be able to “cross boundaries”.

I would rather see a young person who has worked for a living than the silver spoon kids with helicopter parents. They understand what education is for and are ready to fully participate. Some want their education spoon fed to them. That is not education, just mush.

Because the Common Application and colleges look only at high school, our son appears to be just a southern kid from Conyers, Georgia.

There’s no place for him to show that he lived overseas in Asia, The Middle East, and South America for the decade before high school.

As for as activities, it seems like high school should be the ideal time to try out any number of activities rather than stick to just one or two in order to to to demonstrate “depth” to college admissions.

Try robotics, jump into club soccer, switch to Ultimate Frisbee if its more enjoyable, check out volunteer jobs at the Food Bank, see if the Investment Club is interesting, make a movie with the film club, etc.

I know high school kids who are terrified to make ANY activity changes after grade 9 for fear they won’t look “serious” enough when applying to colleges. Instead of exploring and trying any number of fun, new activities, they feel completely constrained in their choices by the unreasonable expectation for “depth” from pre-college teenagers.

Sadly, they may be miss out on an entire field of study or a future career because they were never exposed or didn’t feel they could afford to change interests.

Blogger’s Note: I understand the points you make here, but want to respond to them further. First, there are several places on the Common Application where your son’s time overseas can be noted. He could certainly discuss that experience in the essay section, if he so chooses. His counselor can also make reference to it, in his or her recommendation. As to making changes in activities after 9th grade: every admissions officer I’ve ever interviewed has told me that they understand that students will — and should — experiment with some activities that won’t turn out to be a fit. The hope is that, at some point, they’ll find one or two things that they’ll stick with throughout most of high school. Regardless, I don’t think any student should feel “constrained in their choices,” as you write, out of a desire to please the admissions office. I hope that students — and their parents — can take a broader, longer view. Jacques Steinberg

I am a high school junior who just realized i might have a problem with the common app. Some of my extracurriculars are a little too confusing/weird to be listed in one sentence on the common app, so I would like to include a brief, succinct resume. However, I would also like to send in the abstract to 2 scientific papers I will have written by then. would I be able to send both?

Filling out the extracurricular activities of the common (or other) college application, more specifically, how to discuss them, has always been a challenge for students. As an independent summer consultant, I talk to every parent and teen about depth over quantity, passion over play, challenge over comfort; using each summer to help students grow. And students tell me post-summer how their experience(s) impacted them, prompting more appropriate discussion about it on their college application and/or interview. It is authentic for them.

As a college consultant, I think Jill has hit the nail on the head.
It isn’t any quantity, but quality and dedication. If the common application wanted a longer explanation for the activities, they would have provided more space. If there are unique circumstances, students can always choose the optional essay as a place to elaborate. Too many students have the problem of too few activities. When they see all those spaces, they tend to go for whatever might qualify as extracurricular. If reading is a passion, list it. Extracurricular can mean many things to different people.

As a student who just sent out my application, I find the Common Application extremely annoying. When I “previewed” my application after completion, I noticed a bunch of empty spaces under my extracurriculars. Although I only wanted to complete 5, I was compelled to enter more because… heck … it just looks “bad” to have those empty spaces! It’s kind of like saying “hey, I know you expect 12 extracurriculars, but I only have 5, because I lack the color in life to have double digits extracurriculars as most of your applications probably have”. So I added a few more. Wished I hadn’t.

There’s also not enough space to report all the AP and SAT scores, and instead forces me to list them in the additional section.

Also, I couldn’t understand why my descriptions of extracurriculars keeps getting cut off in the “preview” PDF view, even though it fit perfectly into the textbox and was definitely under 150 characters.
And Common APP even had the nerve to say in it’s FAQ that “Not all answers that ‘fit’ on the online application will ‘fit’ on the PDF of the Common Application. While the answers you provide on the online application are below the character limit for a given field, it is possible that those answers may be truncated when the PDF of your Common App is generated.”
Does that even make sense? Why would you have a character limit if the ACTUAL limit that can be put on the application is BELOW that official limit? Instead, why not just correspond the textbox’s character limit to correspond to the limit on the application in the first place so people don’t have to fumble trying to explain why their descriptions got cut off for no reason. Better yet, why not put the entire description on the PDF!?

To add to the frustration, Common App doesn’t allow you to use Google Chrome on the site! It’s my main browser, and it would be a lot easier if the App doesn’t restrict accessibility to IE and Firefox. I in fact keep having to “spoof” the website by tampering Chrome’s user agent just so I can break that stupid limitation.

So… yea. There’s my two cents on the issue. Common App is so frustrating that I find every way possible to bypass it’s restrictions.